


Girl Talk

by want_exploding_pen



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Abuse of italics, Awkward Talk, F/M, Gen, Genderswap, Rule 63, always-a-boy!Mikasa, always-a-girl!Armin, always-a-girl!Eren, always-a-girl!Jean, cracked - Freeform, erwin and levi suffer genre blindness, girl talk, hange is the only person who is safe, like my personality, mentions of boobs attack, moblit is traumatized
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 11:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6282481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/want_exploding_pen/pseuds/want_exploding_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oi, horseface. Do something about that, will you?”<br/><br/><br/><br/>Or.<br/>The girls of 104th have girl talk. Commanding Officers overhear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Girl Talk

**Author's Note:**

> I know they are fifteen. Let’s pretend I know what I’m doing.  
>   
> FYI Hanji is a woman because rule of funny.

 

 

 

 

 

Erwin thinks: if his life is ever to be lined in front of a firing squad, that would be preferable, and certainly much more merciful, to this deplorable shame, this _agony,_  the  _dishonour_ of it all, despite the fact that this entirely sinister affair being not his fault but rather Hange’s.

(Of course, it’s always _Hange’s.)_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perhaps it’s better to start from the beginning, in which when the day had begun quiet and as unthreatening as it could be with Wall Rose stalwartly looming in the distance from their windows, and despite that it is Erwin’s distressingly underpaid job to be Humanity’s Evil Genius Mastermind of All Seeing Divinity Come Hell, Titan, or High Water, even he could not have foreseen this tragedy.

Seen any other way, it might have been amusing. Hilarious even, in the way that most tragedies are at its base comedies painted black and bloody.

Especially since they have known each other for years, longer than their expectations, and Hange’s always been this naturally calamitous. Always the volatile one, always with the titled moral ground. Of which they are all fatally guilty of, but Hange especially, with her lofty, rambling genius three parts brilliant and six else disturbing.

And what’s worse is that Hange is aware that _Hange’s_ skills are rather invaluable and the resulting innate air of accidentality about her is extraordinary, useful in making her seems across as well meaning and purposeful despite her fatal bumbling about.

It also makes her incredibly immune to many sort of consequences.

Such as the fact that she will be the only one who emerge from this incident unscarred, unchanged a human despite being the sole blame of Erwin’s office fire.

Erwin will always lament the day Hange decided to abandon her once-every-three-days if-Moblit-is-incredibly-lucky bath, the incident in which saw half the battalion glimpsing their Squad Leader in the corridor with suds in her hair and faithful Moblit on her heels begging _please Major at least put something on_ and no one actually bats an eye or loses their respect when Hange loses the towel.

They are all stoic, hardened men and women.

(Of course that was when the fire started and everyone was, for a moment, screaming.

And in the aftermath, there were a series of embarrassed silences and shuffling among the vets as they refuse to meet each other’s eyes.)

The garrison soldiers they happen to have on site had helped in putting out the fire, trying not to laugh the whole time out of politeness and more out of mortal fear of Corporal Levi, who managed to loom despite his unimpressive height while mercilessly kicking Hange to the ground.

At the end of the day, Erwin is still out of an office and Hange should have been out of a job.

But Erwin can’t, in any possible version of this story, decommission humanity’s leading mind in Titan research.

(Levi thinks it’s because Hange has this way of growing on people. Like a parasitic, man-eating fungus.

Which is quite disturbing, all things considered. After all, they live in a world where anything taller than three meters are man-eaters and Hange is half that.

On that ground, Erwin couldn’t possibly set her loose upon unsuspecting civilization on good conscience).

So Erwin sighs, allows himself a staring-despondently-ahead chin-hanging moment, breaks out a bottle of his strongest vine, packs what is left of his office, and migrates to the other side of the castle.

Erwin plans on waiting for things (the fire especially; that is going to be awkward to explain to General Pixis the next time the man comes around, if he is even sober to notice) to settle before formalizing his new office. There are wax sealed documents that somehow miraculously survived the fire but the walls are thin as it is; Erwin is not risking any leaks.

Hange looks at the ceiling for leaks.

Levi accurately throws a pen at Hange, aiming for the nape out of muscle memory.

Moblit sighs.

Mike makes a pot of extra strong coffee, with the good bean, which is very kind.

(Mike makes the best kind of coffee.)

He secretly adds a bit of whiskey into Erwin’s cup. Very kind indeed; Erwin wouldn’t know what to do without him sometimes.

In fact, Erwin wouldn’t know what to do without all of them sometimes. His staffs are _wonderful._

Surely, Erwin can search for every corner of this universe, flip every stone he comes across along the way, and he will never find a unit of such uniquely talented, undyingly loyal individuals under his command.

Surely, there is no contesting the comfort of Hange’s mercurial genius, of Levi’s sharp tongue and blades and even sharper wits, of Mike’s silent depth and unwavering loyalty and Moblit’s enduring and endless tolerance and grounding existence.

“Commander, really, it isn’t any trouble,” Moblit says.

“Maybe a little bit of trouble,” Hange says.

“Hange, you are the root of the trouble,” Mike says.

“If you’re so fucking guilty, I demand a raise,” Levi says.

Surely, Erwin thinks and feels strangely hollow on the inside. He reminds himself again that he could never replace them (firing though, firing them had been the subject of Erwin’s private daydream for one too many times), these people who have followed him through the territory of death and Titans and now through another jungle of deceit and treachery that’s old as water.

Office politics by any other name.

This is already the third night in a row that the five of them have lost sleep for the sake of sorting out statistic damage reports from Stohess and other apocalypse-bearing legal documents which were lost for eternity in the fire.

Which are also slowly ushering them to the brink of spiraling misery of despair and hopelessness.

Even Levi’s helping despite his endless bitching through it and Levi’s only paid per kill number and recently to make sure that Eren doesn’t accidentally kill herself and  _Hange_ doesn’t accidentally kill Eren, and drinks his tea by the end of the day.

(He used to have an allotted rota to drill new recruits, which Erwin thinks he secretly enjoyed, but after cadets had simultaneous nervous breakdown during his shift, Erwin had to take him off.

Levi refused to talk to him for two days afterwards.)

Time has no meaning here as they stalwartly press onward, the hours trickling away from Erwin like everything else in his life that he’d tried to hold, held too close, and finally lost: his youth, his humanity, Mary, comrades and subordinates, higher dreams of freedom, the dwindling stock of vines that has Mike raising disapproving eyebrow at him.

It’s – well, funny.

It’s funny, in a sort-of-awful kind of way that, after everything that the Titans took from him, Eren, who is a Titan as much as she is a young human girl, vulnerable in ways she shouldn’t be, has become his hope for salvation, vengeance, and ultimate redemption.

… it must be fatigue speaking. Age. Drowsiness from the vines he’s had after Hange charred his office into a state of unforgivability that Mike has mercilessly confiscated. Intoxication makes him bitter and anxious.

Perhaps it’s also the lack of sleep and staring for hours at Nile’s incredibly wordy, painstakingly snide reports that makes him soppy, makes him melodramatic. Makes the gears in his brain squeal like poorly oiled hinges.

“Oi, horseface. Do something about that, will you?”

Or perhaps more like poorly oiled hinges of that rickety door being pushed open in the room directly below them.

Eren’s ever-gutting, ever-mutinous voice is loud and clear in the uninterruptible heavy-lidded, bleary-eyed silence of Erwin’s not-office because even Hange had lost her bumbling vitality after the five-hour mark of scrutinizing ridiculously tiny prints that are meant to save paper and ink and destroy perfectly healthy eyesight.

They stiffen as a conditioned reflex and listen closely to the soft padding of feet unevenly paced, susurrus of voices gaining notes of clarity, rustles of fabric and clinking metals.

Erwin isn’t kidding when he thinks the walls are _thin._

What.

What is Eren even doing in this part of the castle at this hour?

“What?”

And she’s not alone.

“Your hair,” Eren says, spectacularly unrevealingly. Levi must be proud. “It’s so… long. Disgusting.”

“Oh shove it, Yeager.”

Another voice is saying, “But why? Jean’s hair looks fine to me.”

Clinks. Clinks.

“Oh, I’m not talking about her _hair_ hair. I’m talking about her hair,” Eren’s disembodied voice says after a beat of silence. “Down there.”

Erwin swears what happens afterwards is a series of fortunate coincidence.

Hange blinks.

Krista squawks in alarm and sends what sounds like buckets (do they even so many buckets after Levi piles them up in the garden to signify mutiny when Erwin refuses to include black tea and new mops in the prerequisite form) to the floor noisily. Very noisily.

Which thankfully disguises the sound of Levi choking on his tea and is dying now after the Titans having failed to do so.

(He doesn’t. Which, in this situation, would have been _mercy_ but that would have also been incredibly awkward to be put down on the death certificate.)

Mike spills a pot of ink on a sheet of legal document that they will all stare mournfully at later. Much later.

For the moment, Moblit turns whiter than Levi’s freshly made laundry. Which is a _feat;_ Erwin has seen new cadets being blinded by the billowing bed sheets hung on the other side of the castle.

Erwin breaks his pen. He’d _liked_ that pen.

“O-Oh. W-What?” Krista meeps, utterly mortified. Or petrified. Or both. Most likely both.

“What?” Jean says, “Why are you so surprised? Don’t you shave too?”

“W-Well. Um. I. Um.”

“Oh, come on. We’re all girls here. It’s not like you have something we never—oh. _Oh._ That’s like, _so cute._ Hey Eren, look at this! Our Krista is—”

Krista squeals. “W-What are you touching?”

Yes, what _is_ she’s touching?

“Quit it, horseface. That’s sexual harassment.”

“Oh, and your hairy little comment isn’t one?”

Taps squeaking. Water running.

“And pass me the goddamn soap.”

Realization is often the most frightening roughly past the two minutes mark from the first wave of shock. When it enters stage of numb comprehension and you are starting to just become aware of just how close those snapping jaws, how your gears sound as they run on low gas, of just how  _fucked you really are._

Because.

This place is, to most men who bleed red, a hallowed ground; the vestige of Promised Land in legends prior to the Age of Walls; a holy temple of virility; El Dorado in a cruel and ugly world shot to an all-you-can-eat buffet hell.

This is to Erwin more terrifying to the land of Titans because Titans you could kill with a blade or be done by. This you could never really recover from.

Therefore.

Therefore, someone really needs to tell them that Erwin’s new office is _not_ directly above the girls’ communal bath.

(But considering their luck, or the utter lack and occasional inappropriate excess of it, if you’re willing to look it from a different angle and sideway while hanging upside down on the gear, they _should’ve_ known better.)

No, no. They _could not_ have known better.

They are soldiers, not politicians – though Levi could certainly argue about that about Erwin – but a matter such as this is sensitive at all authority level in any military branch and dictates delicate handling.

Not even the _Generalissimo himself_ has voting rights or autonomy within these walls where shoot-on-sight is considered legal action.

Another hundred years may come to pass and whether or not mankind will emerge from this war victorious by then is up to the debate, but certain facts of life will remain untouched by time.

Such as the fact that, no matter how far this group has come to be under Erwin’s shrewd management and no matter how much you bleed and cross physical boundaries, female comrades and subsequent shower affairs are _still none of your fucking business brother mine._

They live in a castle; so the girls have their bath on rotation and at random hour of the day. The allotted schedule is passed around bi-weekly in secret and female commanding officers, like Hange, who has her own quarter, are not informed unless strictly necessary.

(Although it could always be because it’s Hange and Hange is self-explanatory in which no one would willingly give her anything she could in some way weaponize.)

Erwin could appreciate this ruthless efficiency at least.

The fact that their girls are highly trained soldiers who have survived man-eating giants, some of them answering to a terrifying number of kill count, and are typically violent and bad-tempered does nothing to discourage certain individuals from trying.

(And they’re certainly trying,  _or dying._

Apparently, the promise of torturous demise not by Titans is not enough to deter some very determined individuals.

Erwin would praise the dedication, but he mostly thinks that suicide mission runs are ultimately senseless.)

It happened in every batch, every year.

This year is no exception. This year is absolutely no exception; the girls of class 104 are especially deadly, but they are also especially _lovely._

The damned door swings again, followed by the uneven drape of footsteps. Girls. Girls chattering. Armin’s sweet, concerned voice bouncing from wall to wall to the ceiling and every corner of Erwin’s suddenly very menacing definitely-moving-again-office.

“Krista, what’s wrong? You look… red. Are you coming down with something?”

“O-Oh, umm,” She clears her throat. “I-It’s nothing.”

“So either our Krista’s a late bloomer or she’s just very hairless,” Jean, who is slightly – a lot – more shameless, answers. “But either way, she is _smooth_ like a newborn babe—”

“Jean!” Krista cries, scandalized.

_Smack._

“Oww! What the hell, Yeager!”

“Is it that much fun bullying her, horseface?” Eren says. “And frankly, better her eagle-bald—” _Krista gasps, “I am not!” which is ignored,_ “—than your _disgustingly stubbly bits—”_

 _This is not happening,_ Erwin tells himself. _It is all in your mind._

“Fuck off, Yeager. I got razor burns when I shave and it fucking _hurts_ when we do that one manoeuvring with—”

“That’s no excuse—”

 _“Excuse_ me, Yeager, not all of us are gifted with Titan healing prowess and us mortals do have to deal with things such as _nicks—”_

“How are you going to face _Titans_ when you can’t handle a measly _nick?”_

“Calm down, you two,” Armin says. Then, more incredulously, “Why are you even fighting about this anyway?”

“Ask her,” says Jean and Eren.

Armin sighs.

“Oh, speaking about shaving,” Erwin vaguely recognizes Sasha Blouse’s voice through the foggy haze of denial. “Can someone lend me a straight razor? I lost mine and now it’s growing like, in bushes down there.”

Oh god no, Erwin despairs. He might even be crying and he is not even ashamed to admit it.

“Dude, that’s what you used it for? Think I gave it to Connie last week so he’d shut up about needing to shave his non-existing beard of manliness.”

“I knew that thing he used this morning looked familiar,” Sasha says. “But I still need to shave. It’s starting to look like the forest of giant trees!”

This should come with a black barrel smoke warning: handle with care. Mishandling may result in bloodshed. No one would even read them the riot act in the aftermath.

And, by some twisted law of the universe, only Hange is offered immunity. The world truly is a cruel place.

Belts and boots begin hitting the floor, buckles clinking, zippers racketing, leathers and cotton sliding against young, stretched skin and—

_No._

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Sach,” Eren says, “but that’s gross. Like, seriously gross. Like Jean-level of gross and that’s something she’s a gross nympho with gross horny bits who can’t lock her knees together with a bolt and two-hundred screws.”

Erwin doesn’t think there’s any other feasible way to take that.

“Oi, watch it. I ain’t taking shit from _you_ of all people, Yeager.”

“What?”

“Remember second year? Remember bonding night?”

“You mean strip poker bonding night night?” Armin’s voice falls so spectacularly flat, they’d need hooks to scale it. “Reiner _accidentally_ stumbling upon a suspiciously convenient stash of vines, which by the way ended with Connie throwing up half of it on _Annie_ and was nearly drowned in the kitchen sink night? Someone goaded Nic Tius into lap dancing Commander Shadis bonding night? _That_ bonding night?”

Well, that sounds infinitely more eventful than what Erwin remembers during his own bonding night.

“I’m surprised you remember all that,” This voice is deep and gruff, mocking, and Hange tells him later that this is the tall, thin, freckled girl that always hangs around the tiny blond. The one who’s not Eren’s childhood friend anyway. “I’m surprised anyone remembers anything _at all.”_

Beat.

“Well, anything other than Wagner and Zeramusky being _awesome_ drunks who flashed everyone their itsy-bitsy wee-wees so they could get Yeager to sleep with whoever got the bigger wee-wee—”

Eren, who is apparently more popular with the boys than she lets on, groans. “Don’t remind me. _Please.”_

“Naturally,” Armin says loftily. “I was the only one sober that night. Besides Commander Shadis. But then he seems to be _enjoying_ the lap dance.”

Ah, good old Shadis.

“Yeah, that sounds about right. Didn’t Eren and Berthold lose pretty badly at poker that night?”

“Dude, Eren was shit at poker. Berthold lost at _everything.”_

“Does anyone remember the part where they got to run laps around the barracks at two in the morning, stark naked?”

Erwin blinks.

Back in the days, they drew on each other’s face and the worst to happen was someone (mostly Nile) hung on a tree or waking up in the forest (mostly also Nile) or missing their socks or eyebrows in the morning, sometimes both (Nile, and mostly were somehow Erwin’s doing; he wonders if that was the reason why Nile hates him so much at times).

 _Well, good heavens,_ time has changed. Erwin feels old.

(Erwin feels like an old pervert.)

“Yeah well, _someone’s_ apparently a very horny, very angry drunk, which no one realized because that’s like, her default state,” Jean says. “Eren shoved the poor guy around before losing her patience and used some fancy manoeuvre she picked from _Annie_ of all people and pinned him down on the ground to have her wicked way on him. The training ground. Where we did morning drills.”

“B-Bert—” Armin chokes.

They hear Eren spitting out water, “What the fuck— _Jean!”_

From his periphery, Erwin catches Hange fearlessly poking Levi with the pen he threw at her earlier; Levi glares at Hange with dark, haunted eyes but has to yet lapse into violence.

Is he dehydrated? He must be. All that _tea._

“Connie’s a perv and he’s a perv who tattles. He went to escape Annie and saw you climbing all over ol’ Bertl like a _fucking tree_ sans gears. A fucking tree that didn’t stand a snowball chance in hell against Yeager’s practiced wiles.”

Thin-and-Freckles – her name keeps escaping Erwin, it feels like it should be important somehow – whistles long and low and absolutely _filthy._

How could she make it so, so filthy? Erwin feels violated just hearing it.

“Oooh, so how was he? Was he good? Was he hung? He looks like a prude, but hey, it’s always the quiet one. And you know what they all say about tall guys and their dick—”

“I’m going to _kill_ Connie,” Eren glowers, followed by a banging sound. Erwin can imagine her making one of those faces her peers call the “totally crazy Titan eyes look.” Eren is a very lovely young girl and rather mild outside of her fits, but she could be… intense. Erwin could see why she and Levi get along so well. “Peeping little shit.”

“What’s the point in that? You’re just going to kill off another idiot on earth and idiots like him tend to propagate to maintain a certain level of idiots in the population. Circle of life,” Thin-and-Freckles says sagely. “So? Did Springer see anything or did he actually _see_ anything?”

“With Connie? Who knows? Said that you were pretty wild though,” Jean croons. “Who knew hard-ass Yeager is a wildcat in bed? Or bushes whatever.”

 _Certainly not her superior officers,_ Erwin thinks and feels mildly hysterical by this.

“Berthold was apparently black and blue when he showed up at the barrack, looking like he’d just gone through _war,”_ Jean says. “Which he tragically lost. The guys were jealous as all hell. Especially since it was  _Bertl_ and he actually one upped them with some real action.”

 _“How the fuck_ is Ackerman not coming down on him like a wronged father-in-law with pair of very sharp knives?”

“Connie said they swore not to tell because poor guy had a huge crying jag. Berthold’s way too nice to deserve Mikasa’s wrathful retribution anyway,” Jean says. “Well, that’s what they said. But I think it’s mostly because they couldn’t handle the thought of Mikasa on a warpath.”

 _“I_ can’t handle this,” Armin informs them.

“Meh, at least now we know why Leonhart wouldn’t give Berthold the time of the day.”

“… Huh?”

There is this seemingly inborn thing that women do when they stop talking that is effortlessly incredulous and endlessly condescending at the same time. How do they do that, Erwin wonders helplessly.

(And could he learn that before the next board meeting?)

“Yeager, I swear you’re as quick as an unmotivated grandmother of snails sometimes. Berthold _likes_ the Ice Princess.”

“… And?”

 _“And_ Leonhart had a serious, convoluted, I-break-your-spine-out-of-doomed-love girl-crush on you.”

“She had a _what?”_

Armin whimpers, not expecting that she’ll be heard. “I need a drink. I need an _alcoholic_ drink.”

“So yeah, between Berthold, Queenie, and Reiner—”

 _“Reiner_ too, Eren?” Armin sounds more appalled then she did when finding out about Eren being a mildly aggressive drunk.

“No. _No._ I never did anything with Reiner,” Eren snaps. “What the hell, Jean? Quit making me out like a whore. It’s not like you didn’t see to the ruin of a few bunker heads yourself.”

“Haa?”

“Jean snuck into Marco’s bed two months before graduation,” Eren sounds like she’s giving out battle plan instead of juicy barrack gossips. At this point though, it might as well be. “And while at it, she might or might not have verbally promised Marco thirty-six ways of tree analogies. Some of which I seriously hope are anatomically impossible because that’d be just gross and wrong and _awful.”_

Jean yelps, “Oh my god I hate you! How did you even _know_ that?”

God, Erwin thinks wistfully.

If there _is_ a god, then this deity should take mercy on this unprecedented predicament and benevolently intervene before someone – someone being Moblit, Levi, Erwin, Moblit again, Mike, in that order – actually develops a particularly unpleasant aneurysm. Not only it’s painful, but the trigger of it would be extremely inappropriate for polite company.

“It’s true?” Armin and Krista ask in perfectly dismayed unison.

“Mikasa’s bunk was right across from Marco. He came down to breakfast one day with this look on his face. It was—” Eren pauses. “It… was kind of funny actually.”

_“Mikasa!”_

“If it makes you feel better,” Eren says, and Erwin can almost believe she means it, “Mikasa said _everyone_ knew. They just pretended not to because that would be awkward as sweaty balls.”

Oh. Oh, _now_ Erwin understands why Eren is Levi’s favourite.

“Hoo. You’re pretty good, Kirschtein,” Thin-and-Freckles croons. “Sneaking into the boys barrack. Didn’t know you have it in you. Too bad lover boy caught you in the act, eh?”

Jean is stridently agonized by the revelation. She obviously doesn’t know what true agony is.

“Calm down. Not so loud. What if someone _hear_ us?”

“Nah, no one’s gonna c’mere. Place’s pretty much abandoned,” Thin-and-Freckles says. “Or that’s what the seniors said. Next to us is the supply closet. I’ve checked. And above us— _what’s_ above us?”

“I dunno. The storage room?”

“It better be. I heard from the boys that there’s an unused room somewhere that they like to smoke in while pretending _not_ to smoke—”

A sharp gasp.

It has the four of them instinctively pitch forward, half ducking for cover.

Erwin thinks it would’ve been a little funny. A little. If they hadn’t been so  _serious_ about it.

Hange on the other hand obviously thinks it’s funny. Erwin kind of hates her at the moment.

“Holy shit, Yeager, is that what I think it is?”

“Holy shit is right, bug eyes,” Thin-and-Freckles sounds almost _impressed._ “String panties. Really? I mean, _really?”_

“It’s a _thong,”_ Eren corrects, almost absent-mindedly. “… What? Don’t look at me like that. Chaffing’s a bitch, but underwear lines under white pants are embarrassing as _hell,_ okay?”

“And the fact that you’re wearing black under white pants is _not?”_

“It is a little… racy looking…” Krista says, but softly curious.

“Be thankful that she’s even wearing anything.”

“Armin!”

There’s a humbling sort of enlightenment to be found in this.

An enlightenment, that usually only comes with the event of true peril or extraordinary death barring being eaten alive, but a man is what a man is when he tries to overcome his suffering, to either be defeated by or perhaps even rising above it.

In the event of which a man is listening in to racy bathroom conversations between lovely female subordinates, regardless of how unintentional or unplanned his position is, a man is what a man is when he knows that he should abandon his pride and _run like hell_ but did not because they’re _men_ after all.

It’s a sad, long session of heart attacks waiting to happen.

“We used to get into a lot of incredibly awkward and occasionally scarring situations there about” Armin says, “Including a particularly bloody one.”

“Bloody,” Krista and Sasha say at the same time, tone completely different.

“I remembered laundry days back when we were kids. Mikasa had just stayed for a few weeks and recuperating from—an incident, and Eren went off by herself and predictably got into a fight with the local bullies.”

Someone snorts.

“… but they made you cry, Armin…” Eren mutters feebly.

“But they made me cry,” Armin’s says, voice soft. Affections untold. “Eren, you do have to admit that your mouth does shoot off faster than your head sometimes and you did let them bait you into that bet.”

“Ho boy, I like where this is going already.”

“Imma shove this soap up your ass so far,” Eren says, “you’ll be shitting bubbles for a month, horseface.”

“Just try me, bitch.”

Evidently, Eren and Jean’s one scratch away from an epic cat-fight is common enough to fly over their heads because Sasha is asking, “So what happened?”

“I don’t remember how they goaded Eren into it, but one moment they were punching one another and then someone managed to talk her into who-can-do-more-cartwheels-in-a-row. Which Eren won by the way because she did fifteen cartwheels in a row—”

“Well, that doesn’t sound too bad,”

“—in this _short dress—”_

Jean gleefully crows, “You mean she _flashed_ the brats?”

“It was laundry day,” Armin says. “Laundry day meant that we let out our laundry, including our underwear, at Eren’s place. I’m not sure why, but somehow Eren _always_ ran out of spare underwear on laundry days. Always.”

“Oi,” Eren says, but no one minds her.

“Eren didn’t realize it of course. They had a nosebleed and she thought it was because of her right hook,” Armin sighs. “Spent the rest of the week cheerfully insulting their… manhood.”

“Tsk tsk tsk tsk, Yeager,” Thin-and-Freckles snorts over the sound of Jean’s loud, rib-cracking laughter. “I’d thought that, okay, maybe, maybe it’s the Titan thing, that they’re messing with your brain, sort of, but I guess you’re just born fucked in the attic.”

Eren makes a very rude interruptive noise, but Armin is already speaking again.

“It doesn’t end there,”

“There’s _more?”_

Why do they sound so delighted about this? This is awful. _They’re_ awful.

“Apparently,” Armin says, “Mikasa heard about what happened a few days later and realized what _actually_ happened.”

Silence.

“Fuck,” Jean says almost sympathetically. “Did anyone survive?”

“They made _Armin_ cry,” Eren says viciously, all the righteous blame and violent protectiveness in the world in her voice. Which naturally makes Erwin thinks what Eren would _do_ if she ever finds out that they are hearing all this. “The little bastards deserved it.”

“Why aren’t you dating Ackerman anyway?”

“Why do people keep asking me that?” Eren sighs, because she is utterly _clueless._ “He’s my brother. We were raised together; I don’t think about him that way. Even if I do, Mikasa deserves more than some half-assed feelings on my part.”

“Do you even _know_ the meaning of half-assing something, Yeager?”

“Half-assing a relationship is being with someone but wanting differently,” Eren says, surprisingly accurately. “Half-assing Mikasa is dating him thinking he’s like my annoyingly overbearing old man and even I’m not messed enough to go that that deep end.”

“That’s harsh, man.”

“Wait,” Jean says. “So does this mean when Mikasa and I get married, you’ll be, like my step-daughter or something?”

“Horseface, you’ll lay your grubby claws on my brother over my dead Titan body.”

For a moment, it’s as if god has heard their prayers.

With the exception of Eren and Jean bickering like a pair of particularly temperamental, disagreeably married alley cats in the background, the chattering lulls away into softer, steady topics of routine and asking to pass the soaps.

For a moment, the world is silent.

For a moment, the all is as it should be.

God has not abandoned them.

“U-Umm,”

“Hmm? What is it, Krista?”

“J-Just that—” Krista stutters, faltering. “N-Never mind.”

“What?”

“Never mind! I’m just—it’s just—”

“What are you—?” Jean pauses before cheerfully continuing, “Oh, my boobs? It’s okay if you wanna touch them. I don’t mind. Here.”

“Hyaa no—Oh. Ooh, they’re… they’re big,” Krista whispers in amazement. “And so… so _squishy.”_

_God has abandoned them._

“Dude, this is just wrong on so many levels,” Eren is saying.

“Suppose you just realized that,” Armin mutters dryly.

“Uh, Krista? Not that I’m not _enjoying_ this,” Jean says, “but the squeezing kinda puts me in a spot.”

Krista meeps.

Thin-and-Freckles chokes around what sounds like a mouthful of toothpaste foam.

Erwin breaks another pen that he likes. Takes a moment to marvel: is this what women talked about behind closed – bathroom – doors?

Because Erwin was a prepubescent trainee once upon a time and had gone through his own phase of pettily comparing phallic sizes in the locker room (or at least, Nile did) and he doesn’t remember it being quite this grabby.

Levi glares at his cup, like he wants to set the poor thing on _fire._

Mike plots official desertion.

Moblit _picks_ official desertion.

Hange sighs and snags her assistant back by the collar; they still need to sort the files by tonight or the brass will have their heads.

(Moblit whimpers, “At least they would only take _one_ head.”

Erwin blanches, because one: did _Moblit_ just make an – albeit morbid – innuendo?

And two: Erwin’s a pragmatic. He’s all about tactical retreat.)

And if Mike, Mike who is arguably the most honourable man in the room – who at least, usually, the most honourable man anywhere – hasn’t bolted for whatever reasons, then _Moblit_ is certainly staying.

“They’re so nice,” Krista sighs longingly. Enviously. “While mine is—is—”

Thin-and-Freckles is muttering gruffly, “Yours are fine the way they are.”

“But I look like a child! Is there any way to make it… make it _bigger?”_

“Try inflating it.”

“Don’t be stupid, Blouse—No, wait. You’re already are. Right. Sorry.”

“Well, they say that if you get a guy to give you breast massages, they’ll get bigger,” Jean says, then adds teasingly, “If you ask Reiner, I’m sure he’ll be happy to—”

“Absolutely not!” Armin and Thin-and-Freckles snap.

 _“Prudes._ All of you.”

“Yeah, definitely not Reiner,” Eren says. “Basically not anyone, but definitely not Reiner. If it’s him, it’s not so much being deflowered than being deforested.”

“Speaking from experience, Yeager?”

“I told you I never did _anything_ with Reiner,” Eren replies, exasperated. “But we’re talking about the guy who got off watching me and Annie grapple shit out of each other on the ground—”

“Wait, wait, are we talking about training days or Stohess?”

“He popped a boner at _Stohess?!”_

“Dude, it’s Reiner. Guy probably has enough libido to get a woman pregnant just by _staring_ at her.”

“But _Stohess?”_

“Peeling particularly large cucumbers could get Reiner going. I don’t see why you’d be so surprised.”

Erwin wonders: where is Armin in all this mess?

“Krista,” Armin is saying, voice delicate but urgent and just mildly alarmed, “there is no scientific proof that breast massages have any stimulating effect on its anatomic growth.”

Armin should be a teacher.

“They don’t?”

“I’m not saying that it’s completely wrong as it is more unproven than anything else,” Armin sighs. “But personally, I think that it’s just a made-up ruse that men use so they can feel up women without getting slapped with a prison sentence. Or just slapped.”

She should be a public speaker.

“I-Is that so…?” Krista says, deflated.

“Yes, so get rid of the idea. _All_ of it. You look perfectly proportionate the way you are. Considering your height, a broader chest area would misbalance your gravity centre on the gear.”

A motivator.

“Don’t mind it, Krista,” Jean is soothing her. “Some guys are seriously into your style anyway. Just look at Reiner. Poor guy _drools_ every time you walk by.”

 _Jean_ should not be a motivator.

“Well, he drools every time _Armin_ walks by too. But you guys are totally magic wonder-twin anyway. So, there.”

 _“Thank you,_ Jean. That is very helpful,” Armin says, evidently sharing this conclusion.

“Besides, you know what they say,” Jean says, cleanly ducking from Armin’s subtle blades of sarcasm. “The boobs don’t make the woman and all that.”

“I don’t know about that,” Eren says. “If we take your jugs away from you, there won’t be much left of you but an _astoundingly_ fat ass.”

“Shut up, Yeager. You’re just jealous of my amazingly bountiful boobs. Feast your eyes on these marvellous wonder of nature and be permanently blinded, you bitch.”

Thump.

“Did—Did you just—?” Eren sputters, “Did you just _smack_ me with your cow tits? Ewww!”

“I name thee Humanity’s Finest Boobs Attack.”

“I name thee Humanity’s Fucking Deadest After I’m Done Rinsing My Hair.”

“I don’t get why guys are so fixated on boobs though,” Sasha muses, largely unperturbed by the vaguely vicious scuffling in her background. Which is saying something about their training years that Erwin imagines being a little bit of a nightmare for their C.O. “Connie and the guys have picture books they hide under the bunkers and the women in them always have like, huuuge boobies. I mean seriously, they’re _huge._ Can they even get that big?”

“They’re dramatized illustrations, Sasha,” Armin tells her. “Breasts of that proportion are usually improbable in human physiology. Not to mention, I imagine that they will look rather unappealing in reality and impractical in application.”

“I know, right? I mean, some of the guys like to talk about legs, like Eren’s legs – now that I think about it they’re mostly about Eren’s legs – but boobs are just… I dunno. Fat, right? You can’t even eat them,”

She tacks on the last part almost mournfully.

“Hey, don’t insult the boobs,” Jean sniffs indignantly. “They’re not _fat._ They’re filled with men’s hope and dreams!”

Erwin swallows convulsively, looking almost physically in pain.

So is Levi for that matter.

And Mike.

And—

Well, Moblit has abandoned dignity and is crying like a violated maiden into his hands. Which is incredibly ironic, when you really think about it.

And Erwin is obviously thinking about it.

“A bimbo in love with her boobs,” Eren mock whispers. “Amazing. I thought only assholes are in love with their dicks.”

“God, Blouse. Stop poking them. They’ll _explode.”_

Sasha lets out a gasp of terror. “R-Really? I didn’t know they could do that!”

“Everyone, please stop talking about them like they’re sentient beings,” Armin calmly retorts. “Eren and Jean, kindly shut up. Sasha, no, they’re not going to explode. But stop touching them anyway. Stop touching mine either.”

Pause.

“Also, please stop saying that kind of things in front Sasha. You know she takes them seriously.”

“Okay then. Blouse, they won’t explode. Even when the dudes are doing it for ya,” Thin-And-Freckles-And-Obviously-Very-Snarky says. “You’ll just explode south of things.”

“Oh for—”

Armin, for someone who grew up with Eren, is incredibly demure and rarely speaks out of turn. But when she does swear, it’s kind of apparent where Eren learned it from.

“Meh, doubt it,” Jean says. “Not a lot of girls can actually get off from that bullshit. I mean, it feels good and all, but most of the times guys seem to think of them as just  _nipples_ _.”_

My god, Erwin thinks. And then, _do they?_

What about this fantastic shape, huh? This _fabulous_ weight—”

“God, Kirschtein. Stop talking; take it as I’m begging you.”

“—and sometimes, they squeeze so hard, it’s like they forgot that they’re attached to someone. Nah, Eren?”

“… Why are you asking _me_ for?”

Erwin swears he could _hear_ Jean rolling her eyes. “Since you’re the only other one here who’s _not_ a virgin obviously.”

Armin scoffs. “You don’t know that.”

Silence.

“Ooh, what’s this now? Hmm? What’s this? Does this mean?” Jean drawls, before gasping sharply, “Did you _finally_ get into the _Commander’s pants?_ Armin, you sly little _minx! Why didn’t you tell us?”_

Eren and Krista choke simultaneously.

Thin-and-Freckles wolf whistles absolutely gutter filthy.

Hange, Levi, Mike, and Moblit whip around to stare at Erwin so fast they must’ve given themselves whiplash. Erwin desperately wishes so anyway.

Levi makes a vague hand motion at Erwin, eyebrow raised.

Erwin violently shakes his head.

“W-Wha—” Armin sputters.

“So I wasn’t seeing things!” Sasha exclaims.

“What? What did you see?”

“Well, more like I don’t see,” Sasha says, ill intention not even in sight. “Armin hadn’t been wearing bra for the past month.”

“Sasha!”

“She hadn’t been wearing one for whenever she had a strategic meeting with the Commander either.”

Jean and Thin-and-Freckles positively  _howl_  in delight.

Erwin thunks his forehead against the table, utterly defeated. This. This is the story of how Erwin Smith is _defeated._

“Strategic meeting? Is that what they’re calling it nowadays?”

“Imagine all the kinky office-desk related non-office-desk-stuff they could be doing.”

“Yeah, from under it.”

Both girls dissolve into an alarming fit of giggles.

They also sound worryingly close to tears. Which precisely describes Erwin’s feeling at the moment.

A loud, crisp smack and a twin “awww!” cut through their mini panic attack session.

“That’s enough from you two,” Eren snaps dangerously before turning to her pseudo-sister. “Armin. Explain.”

“They get sticky during the summer,” Armin says in a teeny voice. “… Please don’t tell Mikasa.”

“It’s already mid-fall,” Eren says incredulously, “And that’s not even my point. Forget the bra. No, _don’t_ forget the bra. Wear them. We’re going to have a good talk about safe sex before you do anything with _anyone,_ maybe in like three years. Or thirty.”

“Eren, _I_ was the one who taught you about safe sex,” Armin reminds her. “Besides it’s not like I’m planning something… something nefarious by forgoing a few pieces of underclothing.”

“Sure you don’t. You’re _Armin,”_ Jean says significantly. “You probably have these clever, devious little schemes instead. Like randomly dropping stationeries behind the couches in his direct line of sight so you can—Armin, are you _blushing?_ Wait. What, you mean it’s _true?”_

“… If anyone ever finds out, I—I—” Armin sobs.

_So it’s true._

Silence reigns for seconds that feel longer than some of their years.

“Do you think the Commander knows?”

“Of course he knows.”

 _He does now,_ Hange mouths. Unhelpfully.

“Commander Tall Blond and Handsome knows everything. I swear that man’s all- _seeing.”_

Snickers.

Levi snorts. He is also very unhelpful for someone who should be sharing Erwin’s pain.

“I don’t think so,” Eren says sharply. “I don’t think Commander Erwin is the type to stare down at his _underage_ subordinate’s breast.”

Eren is officially Erwin’s favourite person in the _world_ right now.

(Hange is the least.

Said Hange who is wriggling her eyebrows at him right now that makes Erwin wants to do something uncharacteristically violent.)

“But this isn’t just anyone’s breast. It’s _Armin’s_ breast. That’s like totally something _vay ree_ important.”

(Hange and Jean Kirschtein. They are not nice people.)

“Oh my god, this is _not_ happening to me,” Armin says, like she thinks she could make it not happen with enough will power. “This is humiliating. Stop it. I don’t even want to talk about it.”

Of course, _they_ want to talk about it.

“What if he knows and he’s just being a gentleman about it?”

“I bet he just doesn’t care,” Armin shrugs. “I don’t have much to offer anyway.”

She sounds… small. Sad. Like a wounded baby doe.

Hange shoots a dirty glare at Erwin. The poor girl is trying _so hard,_ the least the old man can do is _appreciate_ it, it says.

Erwin bows his head, chastised.

“What kind of a man ignores his pretty, young assistant walking around and picking up stationeries behind couches _without_ a bra?” Jean says disbelievingly, not expecting an answer.

“An honourable one,” Eren, naturally, answers. “Not that you’d know anything about honour.”

“Or he’s gay,” Jean brushes Eren off, “which if he is, I’m betting my whole paycheque that he’s all up Corporal Levi’s business. Which is kinda hot by the way.”

Erwin looks at Levi in mild horror; Levi looks back.

“If you value your life,” Eren says, “don’t let Corporal Levi hear you say that shit.”

“But,” Jean moans in the throes what is turning out to be a typical Jean moment, “but—he has _such great_ _—”_

“If you value your womanly bits,” Eren says, “don’t let _me_ hear you say that shit.”

“Seems like Corporal Short Stack’s been rubbing off on someone then.”

Levi twitches.

Eren sighs.

“No. No, he’s not and that’s… that’s a problem. The problem. _My_ problem. He’s not even close enough to rubbing off or on me.”

… Oh.

Oh, the recruits this year are especially _forward._ Brave new world.

“What? You mean you’re not having some wild, kinky sex with the Corporal whenever he calls you away?” Jean makes it sound like it was the most ridiculous thing she’s heard all year.

Levi’s eyebrow twitches violently.

“Not even in my—” Eren pauses, “Well, maybe in my wildest dreams.”

“Dude, are you serious?” Thin-and-Freckles groans, “I have _fifty_ riding on that pool—oww! Dammit, Kirschtein!”

Embarrassingly so does Erwin.

And Hange, and Mike, Nanaba, Gerger, and everyone in the rank and recruit barring Moblit, who is just nice, and Eren’s older brother, and Levi who is going to kill them all when he finds out.

…

“… What pool?” Eren’s says.

“Nothing,” everyone says quickly. Too quickly.

 _“Anyway,”_ Jean interjects pointedly, probably because she has money riding in the pool that everyone knows but Eren and Levi more than anyone else. “Are we even talking about the same Corporal? Our Humanity’s Strongest Corporal? Doing-another-laundry-for-corporal Corporal? Obviously-there’s-a-fuckload-of-sexual-tension-in-this-room how-come-no-one’s-talking-about-it Corporal?”

“How many Humanity’s Strongest Corporal out there you think I’m doing the laundry for?”

_“How.”_

“Let’s just say that,” Eren pauses, the suspense killing them all. Killing Levi most of all. “Our Corporal really is Humanity’s Strongest.”

“That’s deep, girl,” Thin-and-Freckles says feelingly, ten stone cold silent seconds later.

“And you’re saying _you’ve_ never, like attacked him or something before?”

“Define attack,” Eren says, like they’re tactical briefing. “Corporal Levi is… well, Corporal Levi. He doesn’t usually get. Y’know. _Attacked.”_

“Huh, knowing you, I thought you’d already stuck your hands down his pants or tried to rip his cravat with your teeth or something.”

“Fuck no. Do I _look_ like a suicidal— _never mind,”_ Eren clears her throat. “Point is I haven’t done anything drastic.”

“Eren,” Armin starts.

“I know. I know you think it’s a bad idea. But you also said that bad ideas are the one thing I’m _good_ at. _You_ used to think leaving the house was a bad idea.”

“At this point, I still think _you_ leaving the house is a bad idea,” Armin says. “At least tell me you didn’t spike his tea—”

“I did not!” Eren denies, “God, Armin. I just dropped a lot of… I dunno. Hints. Maybe.”

“Was the dropping of these dunno-maybe- _hints_ the reason he kicked you during training three days ago?”

“It _wasn’t_ a kick, okay? Mikasa was overreacting _again,”_ Eren says. “It was more like a… a vigorous shove with a leg. Corporal Levi won’t touch dirty things with his hands and I was _filthy—”_

“Oh, _I_ can think of a few dirty things he may not be so against touching.”

“Horseface, go and shove your mating hormone somewhere else more season correct,” Eren snaps before turning back to Armin, “—and I’m taking things slow. This time.”

“Eren, you have no concept of slow. You only know how to accelerate and maybe painfully crash into unmoving objects,” Armin points out calmly. “Unless, of course, by _slow_ you mean carrying his things and doing his laundry—oh. Oh, Eren. Is that it? _That’s_ your dunno-maybe hints?”

“Armin, I’ve been carrying his things and doing his laundry since I met him,” Eren says as-a-matter-of-factly. “No, I was talking about having the need to usher him up hills and ladders ahead of me so that I can gaze at his ass without commentary because he’s too short for me to pull it off when we’re on even ground.”

Silence.

(They seem to be having an awful a lot of those tonight.)

“Oh my god. You’re flirting,” Armin breathes, “Oh my god. You’re being subtle. Oh my god. Eren, you’re on your _deathbed_ and I don’t even _know.”_

“Shut _up,_ Armin.”

“Did you fall and hit your head again?”

“What? No, I didn’t—” Eren is saying, “The hell— _Armin, get off me!”_

“There’s no bump. _No bump._ You didn’t hit your head and you’re _flirting,”_ Armin says mournfully. “Eren, you’re—you’re not _in love_ with Corporal Levi, are you?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, Armin,” Jean coos. “Yeager’s usual brand of subtlety is to throw a man on the ground, grab his dick, and if she’s feeling particularly patient, she’d let him take off the jacket and use spit. No preamble. If she’s sucking up to him, I think we can almost be sure it’s _love.”_

“Well, Yeager,” Thin-and-Freckles says, with incredible casualness, “Remember to share when you’ve actually gotten around to do some actual _sucking.”_

Noisy kissy noises. Loud, exaggerated moans.

Snickers.

Terrible. They’re all _terrible,_ Erwin thinks helplessly.

Hange whispers that someone should be documenting this because she is the _most_ terrible and is probably planning on adding this into a know-you-all-my-life blackmail fodder she keeps that she holds on and against every one of them.

“I’m sharing you all shit,” Eren says. “Besides, I’m trying so hard not to come on to my commanding officer that I’m probably going to end up doing just that and I’m not sure I will make it out alive trying to give him head.”

“Doubting your deep-throating skill, Yeager?”

“I have no gag-reflex, horseface.”

Erwin watches commiseratingly as Levi palms his face. Someone should really come and put him out of his misery.

Maybe with a gun.

Erwin wouldn’t be so against one right now either.

“He doesn’t even realize that I’ve gotten the advanced manoeuvre down _ages_ ago and I’ve been imposing the most awkward acting of not getting the advanced fucking manoeuvre down so I can touch him without getting my hands cut off,” Eren says, “which I know he will do once he figures it out because they’ll just grow back.”

“Dude, you’re _molesting_ him?”

“That’s hella desperate, Yeager,” Jean snorts.

“At least you don’t see me shoving my boobs into people’s face for attention.”

“I do _not_ shove my boobs into people’s face for attention!”

“You don’t?” Eren sounds _surprised,_ “That wasn’t what Mikasa said after you nearly asphyxiate him last week.”

_“I tripped!”_

“… while on the manoeuvre gear?”

“Yes!”

“… this coming from the person who graduated with top score in manoeuvring skills?”

“Yes!”

“… are you serious right now?”

“Eren, I was one button away from being arrested for improper uniform conduct and your brother’s eyes remained unwaveringly on my face when we talked. _My face._ That hadn’t happened since second year when I finally grew boobs in the summer.”

“Don’t flatter your horseface self by thinking that Mikasa—” Eren aborts halfway, “Is—Is this you admitting that you nearly killed him with your  _breasts_  to get his attention?”

“Man, Kirschtein,” Thin-and-Freckles says smirkily, “that’s sad. Like, really sad. I feel for you, sister. Or not really.”

“Piss off, bitch.”

“Well, Eren,” Krista says, seemingly non-sequitur, “You know what they say about good things.”

“Uh, expensive like hell?”

“Well, _yes._ But most of all, they come to those who wait,” Krista says brightly. “Additionally, they come in small packages.”

“Pffuut,” Hange snorts, cheeks puffing as she crushes the noise under her fingers when Levi turns her way with a certain slowness that is actually more frightening than his godlike speed on the manoeuvre gear.

“I dare you to say that again with straight face,” Jean says.

“I dare you to say that again in the Corporal’s face,” Eren says.

“That sounds rather like a challenge. What would you give me if I do it?”

“Respect,” Eren deadpans. “And a funeral if there’s anything left to bury.”

“It can’t be that bad,”

But Jean sounds uncertain herself.

“Trust me. It’s _that_ bad.”

“Can’t be worse than Yeager trying to communicate mating signal to her Capitan Midget Extraordinaire though,”

“If we’re going to be this way,” Armin says sedately. “At least use the proper terms and say proposition.”

“What Artlet says.”

“If _I’m_ gonna proposition a superior,” Sasha says, “Who’s got the most food?”

“Dunno. Commander Pixis?” Jean says, “… Sasha? Sasha, fuck no. That was a goddamn _joke._ You’re going to give the old man a heart-attack.”

“If the Commander has survived the Titans for as long as he does, I think he will survive an eyeful of Sasha Blouse’s advances.”

“You mean a handful.”

Snort.

“Imagine Sasha Blouse trying to seduce,” Jean says. “Hello, Sir, how do you do, it’s nice out today, Sir, oh, is that a potato in your pocket, Sir, or are you just happy to see me?”

Sasha hums serenely, amazingly unoffended.

“I see that there are no spared expenses in your sense of humour,” Armin says without inflection.

“Say,” Thin-and-Freckles says, “I’ve been meaning to ask this for a while, but what’s with you guys and older dudes with ranks anyway?”

“Excuse me? Have you _seen_ Commander Erwin’s thighs? Or Squad Leader Mike’s guns?” Jean says salaciously. “Dude, the things I could do to them. Would do for them. Ngghhh.”

Oh. Um. Well, that’s… that’s very flattering.

“So it’s because they’re, umm,” Krista pauses, “… good looking?”

“When they’re hot,” Jean tells her sagely, “then they’re hot. I welcome any disparities with open arms. And if they’re real good, maybe with open legs.”

“Oh. Oh, that’s—” Krista says uncertainly, “That’s a little shallow, isn’t it?”

“Well,” Jean says, “Well, okay. Yeah, even I can admit that. But what about you, Krista? Come on, _bull_ if you’ve never even thought about _at least_ one of them. If there’s something that all girls needs at a point of life is a bad boy and _then_ a man in uniform.”

“I seriously think that’s just you, horseface.”

(“Eren never went through the bad boy phase,” Armin says, serene but entirely vindictive. “She goes straight into the uniform one.”

“Seriously?”

“Uh-huh, she used to carry a torch for Commander Erwin.”

“Gaaahhhh! Armin, you _traitor!”_

“Swoon whenever she saw him really,” Armin adds blandly. “Used to be half the reason why she was so bent on joining the corps.”

It _is_ very flattering, Erwin thinks. Even if Levi is going to kill him.)

“Oh, umm, I don’t know,” Krista pauses, then giggles sweetly. “Maybe Squad Leader Mike?”

If ever asked, Hange would answer that it was _Mike’s_ fault for reacting unnecessarily over Krista’s confession.

But on second thought, maybe it’s Moblit’s fault after all.

After all, he’s the one who knocks into Hange in his very quick retreat – because apparently, he _can’t handle it anymore_ – and sends her half-flying into Mike, who is so shocked by the revelation that he’s gone stiff, and then they are crashing across Erwin’s new desk.

Erwin manages to dodge both of them and somehow still managed to rescue his paperwork from utter demise.

Levi’s tea cup isn’t as lucky as it commits suicide on the floor.

(Amazing, they are beaten to punch by a tea cup in the act of felo-de-se.)

Mike groans as he shoves Hange off him. Loudly. Evidently, his vital functions are operative.

_“… the fuck?”_

They freeze.

“D-Did you hear that?” Armin whispers, horrified. “Oh my god. I-Is it from… above?”

“Oh no. No. Nononono.”

“Someone heard us!”

“Shit! Who is it?”

“C-Calm down, maybe it’s just—Eren? Eren, wait, where are you going?" _Bang!_   “Oh my god, the door. Eren, at least wear something!”

There is a time for valour and gallantry.

This is not one of them.

Erwin grabs Hange and hauls her out of the door. Mike is helping him (because _she must be silenced)._

With one last kick from Levi at the doorway, Hange is safely ushered up the hallway, Erwin and Mike’s humongous stride covering more ground than usual. Levi locks the door behind him because they don’t need perfectly incriminating evidences against them.

Like the paperwork with Erwin’s signature.

Like the paperwork with Mike’s signature.

Like the decimated pieces of his victimized tea cup that _Eren will undoubtedly recognise on sight._

Yeah, he really needs to lock the goddamn door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Eren and the rest of the girls arrive, damp and half-dressed but armed to take down probably an army of fifteen meters, the corridor is silent and barren and as uninformative as a homicide alibi.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Come morning, Hange notices over the rim of her steaming black coffee – more water than any actual coffee – that Erwin refuses to talk to Mike for some reasons.

Levi is perpetually glowering into his morning (brand new) cup of tea, appearing sullen and generally offended, which is perfectly typical of Levi. But his more-terrifying-than-usual dark circles Hange thinks need a scientific explanation.

And there is Moblit.

Moblit is usually jittery in the morning, but today he jumps at the smallest thing. Jumps when someone drops a spoon, jumps when someone addresses him, jumps when the slightest of breeze comes through the window.

He’s not going to make it through the day if he maintains that tension all morning.

Hange also notices that none of them would meet each other’s eyes.

She feels like she should parse in a word.

She goes, to parse in a word, probably something to break this awkward, hanging-by-a-thread at-the-edge of hysteria silence, but then the door swings open and admits Eren – freshly showered and bright eyed and long-legged Eren – and the rest of the girls from her graduating class.

“Good morning, Sir!” They click their heels together in salute.

Mike nods with all the comfort of a pulled teeth.

Erwin manages a smile. It’s an incredible feat.

Levi glowers even more into his tea.

Hange waves exuberantly, elbow sweeping Moblit clean off the bench next to her, which she pats lovingly for Eren to sit because she’s their resident Titan-shifter and, therefore, deserves special treatment from Hange.

Eren looks uncertain, but sits down.

She probably does it mostly to keep Hange in her good cheer, which will hopefully keep her at a more manageable state for the rest of the day.

“Good morning, Corporal.”

But she also sits right across from Corporal Levi so it’s not all that bad.

Levi grumbles back a reply, never raising his eyes.

Mikasa, who had saved Eren a seat next to him two tables away, which Jean happily takes now, glares bitterly at the back of Levi’s head as if everything that is wrong with his life is naturally Levi’s wrongdoing.

Eren looks at Levi’s cup, frowning. “What happened to your cup, Sir?”

Levi holds himself commendably. “I dropped it.”

Eren stares at him. Levi glares back.

Eren nods hesitantly.

“Well, are we going to rehearse the advanced manoeuvring today too?” Eren asks, head tilting in such way that the morning light catches the green-blue of her eyes and highlighting the subtle gold rings surrounding them.

It takes all of their military training to keep a straight face.

Levi wipes his face clean of all expressions, saying, “I think you already have a pretty good grasp of the advanced manoeuvring, Eren. So today you’ll be helping shitty glasses with her experiments because she’s been ungodly noisy about it since yesterday.”

Hange hasn’t, but because this means she gets to have Eren for a day without Levi bitching about it, she nods eagerly and catches Eren’s arms like the way a Titan would a human.

Eren looks confused, but says nothing, smiling helplessly when Hange begins a bright-eyed long-winded narration about a diet theory she is _dying_ to test.

Armin walks up to Commander Erwin, her sweetly-boned face that’s just slightly sharper than Krista’s has been mistaken for a seraph.

“Commander, are there changes for the strategic meeting scheduled for today?”

Her tone is pleasant, neutral.

But Erwin is drinking coffee to avert his eyes from being level with Armin’s torso because she’s standing and he’s sitting so he ends up spitting his coffee all over the table.

Armin eyes him worriedly, but also slightly suspiciously. They are so young yet suspicious, Erwin despairs.

Levi scowls tiredly. “Erwin, that’s disgusting.”

“I apologize. It seems that I’m a little under the weather today,” Erwin says stiffly, dabbing the corner of his mouth with a napkin. He glances furtively at Armin before clearing his throat. “Speaking about the weather today, it seems to be windy. Armin, make sure you dress properly.”

Levi slaps a hand across his face.

Mike stares at Erwin with a slightly haunted look like he is seeing him for the first time.

Moblit mumbles a poor excuse about preparing for the not-impromptu experiment and flees the scene before anyone notices him.

No one notices him.

“Oh, umm. Yes, Sir,” Armin says. “Are we going out today?”

“Not particularly, no.”

Levi lets out a frustrated growl and kicks under the table. His aim is Erwin, but his leg is short and his boot ends up instead on Mike’s shin instead. Mike grunts involuntarily, nearly choking on his fourth cup of watery coffee that he is stress-drinking.

Erwin recoils when Armin’s eyes train on Mike like a homing canon shell.

“Are you alright, Sir?” Eren asks, swerving away from Hange trying to spoon-feed her like a puppy.

Mike croaked, “Yes. Yes, fine. Perfectly fine. Miraculous.”

He clears his throat, sounding closer to a groan.

Only to freeze when Erwin and Levi turn to him simultaneously, eyes wide in horror.

Freezes even more when he meets Armin’s widening gaze of dawning realization.

Suddenly Eren stands; hand coming down on the table with a loud crack. Erwin thinks it’s impressive that it doesn’t break in half. It eases his soul somewhat that at least their furniture are sturdy.

The air stops; everyone turns to them.

Levi swallows, feeling the most uneasy in years since escaping the underground Sina, and uncrosses his leg under the table (he hates how it doesn’t go unnoticed by Eren). He dares a look at his charge.

She is smiling.

Eren’s smile is about as rare as Levi’s, though considerably more charming and persuasive and about as violent.

“Commander Erwin, Squad Leader Mike,” Eren’s voice is chillingly polite, her smile bright and serene, but her eyes when she opens them are, well, _not._ _“Corporal._ Can we have a—talk?”

She is probably not asking.

_“Out in the hall perhaps?”_

She is definitely not asking, so Erwin nods slowly, trying to swerve around Armin’s disappointed eyes burning with the power of a thousand sad suns. It seems like the safest thing to do.

Mike steeples his hands together, like a prayer.

Hange hums to herself, looking between them with calloused and undisguised glee. Erwin finds him unexpectedly, fervently hating Hange just for this moment.

Levi thinks he needs a therapy.

“Fuck.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So Moblit survives better than his superiors and ascends the ranks.  
> Only to quit and go back to Hanji after she blows up another office room.


End file.
